Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Deliver Us from Evil Blu-ray Movie Review

How do you say 'Taken' in Korean?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 5, 2021

The surprising part of Deliver Us From Evil is not that it, um, borrows certain ideas from a coterie of films, which is hardly a surprising thing in the movie business, but that it manages to, well, deliver some visceral action sequences and at least a hint or two of honest human emotion in its story of a hitman attempting to retire (yeah, right), only to get sucked into a kidnapping scenario involving his sweet (estranged) daughter. If In-nam (Jung-min Hwang) as a former member of South Korea's National Intelligence Agency and then hired assassin obviously has a "particular set of skills", he's trying desperately to put those skills to rest, anticipating a retirement with pretty significant piles of cash, after his supposed "last job" takes out a gangster named Koraeda. The opening moments of the film document both In-nam's facility at murder for hire, but then also introduces a woman named Young-joo (Hee-seo Choi) and her darling little girl Yoo-min (So-yi Park). Young-joo drops Yoo-min off at school, reminding her that she'll be picked up by a babysitter after school that day, since Young-joo is involved in a business transaction involving the purchase of a huge resort with a golf course. It probably goes without saying that prescient viewers will already have the fine hairs standing up on the back of their necks, and in fact, the upshot of all of this prefatory material is that Yoo-min is kidnapped by the babysitter, Young-joo is killed, and in a none too surprising set of plot developments, it turns out that In-nam is Yoo-min's father. And so the hunt is on.

Deliver Us From Evil in its broadest outlines is simply Taken in Korean, albeit with a younger girl being held captive than was the case in the Liam Neeson effort. But there are a number of other plot elements woven into the enterprise that at the very least suggest some other films. First of all, in one of the more tired clichés of films involving people being taken against their will, it's ultimately disclosed that there's an organ harvesting scheme going on. Second of all, the kidnapping turns out to be a convoluted revenge strategy on the part of a really nasty killer named Ray (Lee Jung-jae), who is out to avenge the murder of his brother, Koraeda. It's all positively ludicrous, of course, but Deliver Us From Evil, kind of like Taken itself, marauds through these plot points so swiftly and then offers a number of gruesome scenes involving both Ray and In-nam to keep lingering questions (like how Ray knew about all of the interrelated connections between various characters) at least mostly at bay.

The film is a bit odd structurally, with a perhaps needless flashback suddenly inserted partway through which gives the history of both In-nam and Young-joo, but even this trip down memory lane has its own visceral intensity at times. What actually works much better is the contemporary cat and mouse game between In-nam and Ray, each of whom is kind of vicious in his own way. In that regard, there are some pretty chilling scenes with Ray following in his father's footsteps as a butcher, at least in the way he dispatches his victims. Another character named Yui (Park Jung-min) gives the film a bit of the "gender fluidity" of The Crying Game. And in fact it's Yui who ends up inspiring the majority of the film's emotional impact, since In-nam, while ostensibly more "honorable" than Ray, probably ends up severely maiming, injuring and/or just outright killing other characters as Ray does.

Kind of unaddressed in all of the carnage is an unavoidable feeling of shock over the fate of little Yoo-min. Suffice it to say this tot witnesses all manner of horrors throughout the film, and if Deliver Us From Evil understandably offers her as near catatonic after a while, it also indulges in a bit of perhaps wishful thinking in the (semi?) happily ever after category, in what is probably the film's most blatant attempt to get an emotional rise out of the viewer.

Deliver Us from Evil Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Deliver Us From Evil is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists Arri Alexas and a 4K DI as relevant datapoints, and the 4K DI in particular may account for this presentation's typically excellent levels of fine detail. As can probably be pretty easily made out in many of the screenshots accompanying this review, several long swaths of the film are almost bathed in a sickly yellow tone (which sometimes almost starts verging on yellow-green territory), but commendably clarity is at least relatively consistent and detail levels can be very appealing. Despite the almost jaundiced appearance, other colors pop surprisingly well, with blues and especially reds looking extremely vivid at times. There are some other interesting grading and/or lighting choices on display which can often coat the frame in various hues (see screenshot 12 for one example).

Deliver Us from Evil Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Deliver Us From Evil features a propulsive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that provides regular engagement of the side and rear channels, as well as some extremely forceful LFE. The film has requisite set pieces which involve everything from hand to hand combat to gunfire to car chases to car chases with explosions, and as a result the surround channels often provide a wealth of effects work. An energetic score by Mowg also offers good immersion. Interestingly, the US Trailer included as a supplement suggests an English dubbed version was release, but there is not an English language track on the disc. Optional English subtitles are available.

Deliver Us from Evil Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (HD; 5:29)


• Filming Location (HD; 3:12)


• Teaser (HD; 1:36)


• International Trailer (HD; 1:32)


• US Trailer (HD; 1:23)

Note: As is the case with most Well Go USA releases, the disc has been authored so that the supplements follow each other automatically, so that clicking on the Making Of featurette is essentially a Play All button. After this film's US Trailer plays, the disc has been authored to move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Deliver Us from Evil Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

You're not going to find anything very inventive in terms of the basic storyline at play in Deliver Us From Evil, but that fact perhaps makes it even more remarkable how energetic this film regularly is. The scenes with Ray really bristle with a rare, discomfiting menace, and if In-nam makes for a somewhat more traditional morally compromised (anti?) hero, there's still enough of an emotional tether courtesy of his relationship with his daughter to give things at least some aspect of relatively real feeling emotion. The addition of Yui is arguably this film's best asset, giving the story a more deliberate tug of the heartstrings. Technical merits are solid, and Deliver Us From Evil comes Recommended.